


Striptease 2: The Legend Continues

by ivorygates



Series: Striptease [2]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M, I Don't Even Know, Season/Series 09, Team Dynamics, The Author Regrets Nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-04-12
Packaged: 2017-12-08 07:40:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/758824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygates/pseuds/ivorygates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barefoot now and pants gone. The hell with it. He closes his eyes. They haven't left all the crazy people on the other side of the Gate. No wonder Teal'c stayed on the Base. When he feels the covers settle over him, he lets go of his waistband and holds on to the sheet. Jackson's crazy. Sam's gone crazy. He's crazy to be here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Striptease 2: The Legend Continues

**Author's Note:**

> Tesserae wanted to know where Cam learned to dance. So, um, I'm actually not taking any responsibility for this. None. That's my story. I'm sticking to it. Really.

They're drinking Casa Noble with Two Horses back. Tequila is never a good idea. Listening to Jackson lecture him about premium triple-distilled 100% blue agave tequila while licking sea-salt off the back of his hand ... his hand, Jackson's hand, wouldn't matter much at this point, and the fact that he can even think about licking Jackson just _proves_ that this is probably a bad idea. The listening or the drinking? Cam isn't sure, and right now he doesn't give a rat's ass. The three of them are sitting on Sam's living room floor - Cam has always gotten a kick out of her lady-lady digs, considering everything - and this was Jackson's idea (yet another of Jackson's set-the-world-to-blazes-and-reach-for-the-fiddle ideas.) A celebration, he said. What the hell they're exactly celebrating, Cam isn't sure. Getting off the Base without giving General Landry a coronary? Could be. He's a little vague (right now) on exactly what he _said._ Something about: _"Sorry I had to take all my clothes off and give them to the aliens so I could bring my team home alive, General, sir."_ The exact circumstances of how he took them off will remain one of the Untold Stories of SG-1. He hopes.

And if they were gonna celebrate, it should have been the _four_ of them, but Teal'c said he thought he'd take a pass. He's got a computer in his quarters these days, and everybody's real careful to not ask what he does with it. But it's got Internet.

And Sam said they ought to come to her place, because they really ought to celebrate, and then she told Cam to pick up a couple of pizzas on his way, so of course he got there last (Friday night, and everybody and his brother lined up in the good pizza place), and by the time he got there, they were both there and they'd had time to settle in.

Not to start drinking. Oh, no. They waited for him and the pizzas. And beer and pizza, that's fine, but once they got the pizza out of the way, Sam took the pizza boxes into the kitchen and came back with a tray. Blue bottle. Shot glasses. Bowl of cut limes. And a _bowl_ of salt, because Jackson is some kind of goddamned _purist._

"Oh, I really don't think-" he says, and Jackson just laughs as if Cam's made the _best joke ever_ and opens the bottle and pours all three glasses full. Sam lined 'em up like she's auditioning for a job at _Coyote Ugly._ Jackson pours them full _to the brim._

"You know how to drink tequila, don't you, Mitchell?" he asks.

"Oh, hell, yeah," Cam says, because the day he backs down on a dare from Jackson is the day he turns in his papers.

Lick, salt, lick again, shot, lime and suck. When the different kinds of fire recede, he sets the lime-wedge down and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Picks up his half-finished beer and takes a pull. "Your turn."

Jackson's neat and precise, licking the back of his hand like a cat washing, dusting it down with a pinch of grey-blue salt rubbed between his fingers, licking it up again, pouring back his shot and reaching for the lime. Cam watches as carefully as if he's going to be questioned on Jackson's performance later.

Sam snickers while she's biting into her lime, dribbling juice down her chin, mopping it up with her fingers, looking flushed. "You're out of practice," Jackson says, and he sounds almost ... fond.

"Haven't done this in a while," she agrees, sucking on her fingers. Cam stares at the carpet so he isn't looking at Sam licking her fingers and thinking thoughts better not thought in mixed company.

They do another round.

"This is a bad idea," Cam says, as the second shot burns down. Whatever this stuff is, it's smooth as well-water. He reaches for the bottle, wanting to see.

"Most of what we do is a bad idea," Jackson says. He snags the bottle before Cam's hand can reach it, and begins lecturing Cam on the history and production of tequila. And the history and production of what exactly it is they're drinking right now, which is apparently the _naquaadah_ of tequilas. Cam decides that now is a good time to slide from the couch - where he'd been sitting beside Sam - to the floor. He leans back against the edge, watching Jackson clean up stray salt-crystals from his wrist in between explaining how to make moonshine out of cactus. Apparently all this is entertaining enough to make Sam giggle to the point that she slides down beside him. And that interrupts Professor Jackson's lecture, earning them both the Pissy Face. "You both need another beer," Jackson says, and gets up to get them.

Jackson hasn't been sitting on the couch in the first place; he's been sitting on the floor at the narrow end of the coffee table. He gets to his feet in one fluid motion - no hands - and walks off to the kitchen without weaving at all. Cam wonders if dying increases your alcohol tolerance. Jackson comes back a few moments later with three beers. Twists the caps off and hands them around, but when he sits down, it's on the couch. He raises his bottle in a salute.

When Cam drinks, he suspects he may well be on his way to drunk, because the beer slides down like water.

They do another round of shots. And Cam _does not balance the lime wedge on his nose_. He could, though. If he wanted to.

"So," Jackson says. "Where'd you learn to dance like that, Mitchell?"

The question shocks him - not to sober, but to _crazy_ , because he's tempted to say, and he's got a pretty good notion there are things it _would not be_ a good idea to share with the rest of the class, especially if Professor Jackson is teaching. He thinks about a juke-joint with the music blaring, and keeping your balance dancing on top of a table, and the _goddamned grace and skill_ involved to ride it down when it starts to tip. Doing it because it was _fun._ Only damnyankees don't like to dance - he'd figured that out when he'd come to the Academy. But cowboys and damnyankees and zoomies all loved to fight, and if he'd intended to party on Friday and not be written up on Saturday, the important things were to be fast and astonishing. And to not get hit in the face.

The rest of it...?

Maybe Jackson's never been to a strip-show. Cam doesn't think there's any other guy in America who hasn't. A _girl_ strip-show. But it was Fergie's idea that they should go to this place called Chippendale's in New York City and watch _guys_ take their clothes off. Fergie swore his sister'd gone in Atlanta and the guys didn't get butt-naked and besides, it was a good place to get lucky. Which it wasn't, because all the women there thought they were both _gay_ (which for damned sure served Fergie right, and thank God they weren't in uniform, either of them) and Cam had a good laugh over that and it'd been kinda interesting, because he'd never thought that women would go to a place like that, although he sure knew (had known for some time) that the ladies liked to look.

So he says: "Lots of places," and knocks back the rest of his beer, and Jackson leans forward and pours three more shots, hands steady as a surgeon's, and Cam thinks _Screw This_ and just dusts a pinch of salt directly onto his tongue and chases it with the tequila, and fumbles for the limes, and Jackson grabs his hand (gently) and sets one of the wedges of fruit between his fingers, and Sam makes a little whine of disgust in the back of her throat (she's always been a sissy about the salt anyway, as Cam remembers) and knocks her tequila back straight, no frills.

And Cam says: "You gonna get drunk that way, Sam," because it's an _article of faith_ (in some circles) that the salt and the lime stops (or at least slows) the intoxication, and Jackson says: "Yes, but where?" and Cam hears himself say: "Strip clubs, mainly," and feels the ghost of a remembered back-beat make his hips twitch just a little, and hears a voice (reasonably sober, all things considered, and definitely his) telling a long story about a roadhouse in Louisiana that Cam knows all-too-well. The King on the juke and him up on one of the tables, and there isn't one boy alive south of the Mason-Dixon Line who isn't born knowing enough Body English to shut down a Baptist Social just to begin with.

And there are fingers stroking the back of his neck, and he knows they aren't Sam's, because Sam has one hand a little-too-high on his thigh and her other propped on her knee still clutching her shotglass, and he's got a chewed lime in one hand and an empty shotglass in the other, so he knows where _his_ hands are.

And that leaves Jackson. And Cam is too goddamned drunk at this bright particular instant to know or care whether Jackson is married, gay, or dead. Cam knows he's been at least two out of the three, and at least one of those states is supposed to be permanent.

Jackson says: "I wondered," and Cam says: "I never-" because the idea is working its way into his consciousness that he's managed to give Jackson the idea that he's _stripped for money._ And he doesn't think Jackson would exactly gossip about it, but _still._

Sam laughs, and it's a merciless sound. "You could," she says, and he shies his lime-wedge in the direction of her kitchen. He hopes she steps on it in the morning.

"It's a good way to make money," Jackson says, as if this is another matter he's given serious thought to.

"I was _in the Academy!"_ And it sounds a lot more like a wail of despair than an Air Force Officer should be giving vent to under any circumstances, but Cam's got a Lieutenant Colonel trying to feel him up right now who ought to be remembering that _she's_ an Air Force Officer too, and those fingers still moving on the back of his neck can't make Cam decide whether he wants to change his luck right here and now.

Or - for that matter - if Jackson's offering. _What_ Jackson's offering. Why - if Jackson wanted to make a pass at him at all - he'd do it in Sam's living room, with Sam hellbent on getting her hands on the goods she got such a good look at earlier. He grabs her hand just as it gets to the Promised Land. She makes a sound of disappointment.

"Behave," he says. It's at that point he realizes that his voice sounds furry and his lips are just a little numb, and standing up might well be a subject of serious difficulty. Four shots and three (he thinks it was three) beers. He isn't going anywhere tonight. Except to the kitchen, or maybe the bathroom, because maybe if he loads up on enough water he won't quite want to _shoot_ himself in the morning.

"Never have," Jackson says, and Cam can finally hear the tequila in his voice too. There isn't any slur to it. It's just a little rough and slow, and it makes him catch his breath, even before Jackson lifts his feet up off the floor and rolls onto his back. Cam thinks that somehow it makes sense that the two of them are sitting on the floor while Jackson's up on the couch.

Jackson let go of him for a minute when he moved. It's more of a jolt when the hand comes back. Not on Cam's neck this time. On the side of his face. First tipping his head back to lie against Jackson's ribs - not hard at all, Cam doesn't resist him - and then turning his head in Sam's direction. Jackson wants him to watch.

Jackson's kissing Sam. Or Sam's kissing him. Cam isn't quite sure which, and he's so thoroughly and completely drunk that it takes him seventeen seconds to be sure of what he's seeing, and he knows exactly how long it is, because drunk or not, there's no way he isn't going to know how long something takes to happen. And yes, sir, that's seventeen seconds of liplock right there.

Jackson's got an arm around Cam's head. His wrist is cocked, fingers spread along Cam's neck and jaw. Cam can't tell where his other hand is. Sam's twisted around with her back to him now, all of her attention on Jackson, one hand on his chest, and Cam can't make up his mind whether to be relieved or disappointed, although a sensible man would be relieved. He supposes. Jackson's body is warm against his cheek. He wishes he could decide what's going on. Jackson warning him off? Easier ways. Hell, _Sam_ could've told him. They're friends. She owes him that much of a heads-up. She knows he'd never make a move where he wasn't wanted. Even though she seems to be trying to sit in his lap and kiss Jackson at the same time right now, and Cam might think that's a bad idea, but even half-seas-over, his body's got other ideas.

Thirty-seven seconds in (and sure he can stop counting and measuring and assessing - _when he's dead_ ) Jackson tilts his head back and snakes his arm out from wherever it was and puts it around Sam, and Cam - and Cam's body, and the two of them are in a debate right now and Cam's losing - realize that now Jackson's touching both of them, and he says (as if he's been thinking about it for hours and is finally ready to present his findings): "You did very well out there today, Mitchell."

"I am so glad you approve," Cam says, speaking slowly and precisely because plenty of alcohol on top of that adrenaline crash earlier is guaranteed to bring out the Southern in his voice, and he hates like fire to be laughed at, but he hates worse not to be understood. He's already half-ticked with Jackson at patronizing him. He'd rather not add anything else on top of it.

"I do," Jackson says, and there's still nothing but approval in his voice. "False modesty kills as many people as stupidity does. You knew when to set it aside."

Cam closes his eyes and hitches a little sideways, turning his face into Jackson's torso. Reaches out a hand and settles it on Sam's hip. Jackson wasn't trying to wind him up or trying to piss him off. Not just now, anyway. Jackson was telling him the Dr. Daniel Jackson PhD version of God's Honest Truth. And the fact that it's just as weird as the entire contents of this living room probably shouldn't surprise Cam at all.

Sam's shirt has ridden up. Cam slides his hand under it, palm against the skin, with careful deliberation. He knows she's ticklish. Thinks of other times and places. Opportunities that might come again, might not. Depends on a lot of things, including how far the two of them can bend Regulations. Could be she and Jackson've already snapped them in two.

Jackson's got a new angle on Cam now that he's shifted position. Hand cupping the back of his head, and Cam's doing his best not to feel like somebody's Golden Retriever. Wishes this weren't as soothing as it is. Touching, and being touched, and he's got Sam's ass pressed up against his hip, warm and heavy, and all he needs to do is turn toward her a little more, ease her further back against him, and he'd have her right where the part of him that should never be allowed to make his decisions would really like to have her. And he's only sure of two things right now. One, that he's too damned drunk to make rational decisions. And two, that he's not _doing Sam Carter across her living room couch in front of witnesses_

Drunk. Okay. He knows how to be drunk. He's been drunk before. And he doesn't want Jackson to stop touching him, and he doesn't want to stop touching Sam, and he'll deal with both of those things. He forces himself to open his eyes.

The disconnect between what he thought was out there and what really is brings him one of those totally-false moments of _Holy Jesus God I Am Drunker Than I Thought_ clarity that he's still going to take advantage of. Sam isn't where he thought she was at all. She's rolled over on her front, almost on her knees, lying across Jackson's chest, and Jackson's got his other arm around her and a hand threaded through her hair and the two of them are just as cute together as a basket of puppies. Rabid cannibal puppies.

Cam rocks over onto his back; Jackson's hand slides with him, just cupping the top of his head now. He takes a deep breath. Avoids smacking Jackson in the crotch with his head, because if Jackson's in anything like the state Cam's in right now, he wouldn't be doing the guy any favors. Sucks in another deep breath, feeling lightheaded, and forces himself to concentrate on _getting himself onto his feet._ He has been goddamned drunker in his life. He isn't even halfway to puking and he can still see. He can do this.

But half the damage right now is the adrenaline crash and he knows that damned well. Shouldn't have been drinking at all. Only ... this is when you really want to. When you've had the living crap scared out of you but you're still here. Fortunately he knows Sam's living room by heart. He knows to put his hands in the middle of the coffee table (so it doesn't tip) before using it to lever himself to his feet. It's still touch and go. He doesn't try any more moving before the room settles down.

"Cameron...?" Sam notices he's moved and flails an arm toward him. Jackson grabs her wrist. And Cam's grateful for that: he's balanced, but he's not all that _steady._ He makes a careful gesture toward the back of the house, the Universal Sign Language for _bathroom_. He turns around - feeling like he's twenty-five feet tall and as thin as a sheet of paper - and sets off.

He finds the bathroom. He does not fall down, break anything on the way (his body parts, Sam's things), or get lost, and he's pretty sure these are all major achievements right now. Washes his face, soaks his head, recycles the beer he drank, washes his face again, takes four aspirin, drinks as much ice water as he can hold, and he knows he isn't one whit more sober than he was when he came in here, but he's got a hope of not wanting to _just lie down and die_ when the sun hits his eyelids come morning.

And there would be a lot of things it would be real useful to have right now, and he hasn't got one of them. He doesn't have a gadget that will _beam him back home._ Sam doesn't have a guest room (and he doesn't mind the couch, but it's _just a little bit occupied_ right now.) He doesn't have enough functioning brain cells to enter into a rational discussion of _anything_ with Stargate Command's two resident geniuses. From their sex lives to the state of the kitchen (Sam cooks when she thinks to, but it isn't that often.) And he can't hide in here forever, so he might as well go back out there.

But he realizes he's made a tactical error when he comes walking (oh so carefully) out of the bathroom to find Sam and Jackson coming down the hall. Jackson has an arm around Sam; she's not completely steady on her feet.

"Bedtime," Jackson says, seeing him.

 _Oh, hell yeah._ "Yeah, I'll just-"

And Jackson just ... stops. Smiling just a little. The hallway isn't that wide. He and Sam are blocking it completely. Cam can either stay where he is (which means nobody gets to go anywhere, since the bedroom's behind him), back up (which he vaguely feels is a bad idea, though he can't say why), or knock the two of them over in order to get to the living room. And they all stand there and stare at each other (twenty-one seconds) until Cam finally gets the idea of rolling flat against the wall so they can get past.

But that doesn't work either. Jackson reaches out an arm as he walks past, grabbing Cam by the arm as if his entire mission in life is to drag Cam into Sam's bedroom. And Cam is saying "No, no, no, no," but if he doesn't come along at least halfway willingly he knows he's going to drag all three of them down to the floor and the hallway's narrow enough that somebody's gonna get hurt. So he keeps saying "no," and Jackson repeats "Bedtime," and Cam says, "Couch," and he doesn't think they're communicating _at all._

Or maybe Jackson just isn't listening.

The three of them go through Sam's bedroom door. "Bed," Sam says, as if they're all playing some kind of fun new isn't-going-to-get-them-all- _shot- and/or-brought-up-on-charges-there-probably-aren't-even-names- for_ -game. And yeah, Cam is familiar with that bed. It's got room for Sam and half a dozen of her closest friends, actually. This doesn't mean Cam _wants to get into it_ with Sam and half a dozen of her closest friends.

"Yeah. Look. Sam. We have all been drinking. I am going to-"

"Go to bed." Jackson is almost starting to sound annoyed. "In the bed."

Sam steps back - bracing herself against the wall beside the door - and Jackson walks Cam over to the bed. He doesn't hurry him, but he doesn't let go, either, and when they get there, he turns Cam around and sits him down on the edge. The covers have already been turned back to the foot, and Cam wonders just how much of all this was planned, and when, and by whom, and _just whose bright idea_ it was for the three of them to get staggering drunk on tequila. _Tequila_ , for God's sake. Nothing good ever comes of drinking tequila. Just ... nakedness. Talking. Bad things.

If Jackson had moved fast - if he'd jounced Cam around - Cam would have fought back. But he doesn't. Not one move is fast enough to make Cam the least bit dizzy or disoriented, not even when he strips Cam's t-shirt off over his head.

Twice in one day is a bit much. Cam is opening his mouth to object, but his feet are coming up off the floor - slowly, gently - and he's trying to figure out how the _hell_ that's happening and what's going on. "'m drunk," he mutters, blinking up at the ceiling that's suddenly appeared in his field of vision. Something doesn't seem at all fair. He isn't exactly sure _which_ part of it isn't fair, either. Maybe it's the part where Jackson's still sober. Or the part where you keep getting drunker even after you stop drinking.

"I know," Jackson says gently. "Relax, Mitchell."

His pants slide down, and he grips the waistband of his boxers determinedly. He's keeping them this time.

Barefoot now and pants gone. The hell with it. He closes his eyes. They haven't left all the crazy people on the other side of the Gate. No wonder Teal'c stayed on the Base. When he feels the covers settle over him, he lets go of his waistband and holds on to the sheet. Jackson's crazy. Sam's _gone_ crazy. He's crazy to be here.

Asked for the posting. Wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

A little while later he hears conversation. Jackson's voice, and Sam's, and he knows how she sounds when she's pretty thoroughly _parlayed_. He thinks he should have told her to drink water, because she always forgets until the morning, but then he remembers that Jackson's here, and that shouldn't be soothing, but it is. The mattress dips as she settles in behind him - he's gone over on his side, the way he likes to sleep - and puts her arm around him, the way she always does when they sleep together, and nuzzles the back of his neck. He reaches back and finds her knee. Pats it. She sighs against his hair.

And the mattress dips again, and Jackson's climbing in on the other side. _Going to hell for sure,_ Cam thinks, but he's almost all the way asleep, so all that comes out is a mumbled: "Hell."

And he hears a faint sound of amusement from Jackson. "Sure you are, Mitchell," he hears Jackson say. "But not yet. Not for a while." And Jackson drapes an arm across his ribs, sliding his hand down to settle it on Cam's hip, and Cam feels Jackson kiss him on the forehead.

Then he's asleep.

#


End file.
